Monday, I had a funny, yucky dental taste in my mouth. Yesterday at 1:36pm I got a phone call from my dentist office. As soon as I answered, I remembered I was supposed to be there at 1:00. Oops! Well, they were merciful and decided "not to charge me this time," but said they would if I stood them up again. And they even let me have another appointment, for today. I found out that I'll be needing $1500 of dental work, to fix up some old stuff I've had in there for a couple of decades. Boo for bad teeth. I brush them a lot, and floss them... My dear husband, who flosses twice a year and has never had a cavity in his life tells me that maybe I'm brushing all the enamel off my teeth...right.... Too bad we're not all so lucky to have perfect pearly whites.

After the dentist office, I took my starving children for a nutritious meal at Sonic. After ordering I rolled my window back up to keep the sweltering AZ heat out of my car. A few minutes later, up skips the Sonic guy with our food. As I roll down the window, he says, "Whoa!!," so loud it makes me jump...Then finishes the sentence with, "I just saw some bright blue eyes!" I half smiled and thought, "where did they find this silly guy with the tatoo on his neck?" After helping him figure out my change, I was off to get stuck in a traffic jam for the next 45 minutes.
All in all, it was a pretty good day. If I could just make myself go to bed now... Daniel and Jaden are off at a fathers and sons campout tonight. Zoee and I went to a mothers and daughters pool party. It was great fun, even if my picture was taken in mid sentence. But now that Zo is asleep and I am alone in the quiet house, I'm afraid that if I turn off the lights and try to sleep I will freak myself out with imaginary things. Yes, I'm a chicken. So here I am blogging, after midnight, about nothing really, but too tired to do anything productive.

Temple Trip

Last Saturday, we got to attend the Gila Valley Temple open house in Pima, Arizona. It was such a great experience, and the kids loved it! They marvelled at the beauty of the temple, and we so enjoyed the wonderful feeling of being there. Before temples are dedicated, they are open for anyone to go inside, look around, and learn a little about why temples are so sacred and special. One of the most special things about temples is that we believe that there a man and woman can be married not only for time (until death do us part), but for all eternity, and that if we obey the commandments of God, we can live with our spouse and family together forever...Heaven would not be Heaven to me, if I did not have my family there.

The bottom two images have pictures of the interior of the Gila Valley temple and an explanation of what temples are used for.  If you double click on the images to enlarge them, you can read a further explanation.                                                  

    

I Should Have Been Nicer to the Dishwasher...

Once upon a time, I lived in South America. I shared my tiny un-air conditioned, cement floored apartment with cochroaches and ants. I washed my clothes in buckets of cold water. I washed my dishes in a single sink with cold water. I mopped my floors with a rag. I took cold showers most of the time, or risked getting shocked by the water "heating" shower head. Sometimes I ran out of water in the middle of my shower. I walked everywhere or risked my life on an overcrowded bus with the most insane drivers I have ever seen. Most mornings I would get fried to a crisp in the hot sun, then walk around drenched by the rain in the afternoon.

When I got home, I was so grateful for the USA. I marveled at having a washer and dryer, a dishwasher, a car, clean water, clean anything actually, and not smelling like mildew all the time...

That was 8 years ago, and I have obviously forgotten a few things...

Our dishwasher is broken...it took me two hours to handwash this load of dishes...funny how you forget to appreciate things until you don't have them anymore... :) I think I should take time today to thank my washer and dryer, my shower, my hot water heater, my car, my air conditioner...

Spiders!

We started off by raiding Dad's sock drawer, and stuffing our "legs" with plastic bags.

We then pinned on the legs, added a few extra eyes, and got some balls of "web".

Let the spinning begin!!

Zoee got stuck in the web and got a little frustrated.

But her mood changed when the "flies" started buzzing in!

They had a delicious fly feast from their web catchings!

If you click to enlarge this pic, you can see that Zoee is displaying her theme as of late.

Afterward, the little spiders crept around the front yard for a while and picked mommy some flowers.

...And then finished off with some cold, refreshing "apple strawberries." We call them that because they are as big as small apples and as sweet as can be! Yay for Arizona produce! Yum!

Disclaimer: Spider activity inspired by Supermom Tara :)

Park Play

We're enjoying the outside as much as we can, before we are confined to the air conditioned house for the next few months!

Happy Mothers' Day!

At church on Sunday, all of the mothers got a carnation. Of course, my children wanted to hold mine. By the time we got home this is what was left of my carnation, so I had to float my stemless flower in a bowl. I later found this tiny little vase for my stub.

On another note...several years ago I was completing my internship. Since I was paying tuition to work full-time (as an intern), plus going to school full-time, I didn't have any money or any way to earn money. My dear little brother took out a student loan in his name and paid my tuition. Well, I graduated, got a job, and paid him back. A couple of years later, little brother was broke and I was not quite as broke, so I lent him $500. Well, then he decided to get married and have twins and try to finish school, etc, etc, and he just got even more broke. Three years later, he has a good job, and I got a surprise check in the mail for $500, which allowed for the purchase of my Mothers' Day present - an electric wheat grinder and a bosch mixer. It sure is pricey little kitchen equipment, but it sure is fun!!! By the way, for those of you who have suffered through my crumbly homemade bread, I have finally learned to make it right, and it is DELISH! I'm cranking it out 5 loaves at a time with my new Bosch, so now would be a good time to come back for the new improved version! 

PS - HAPPY BELATED MOTHERS' DAY TO ALL OF MY MOMMY FRIENDS!

Naptime?

This RARELY happens, but I love it when it does! This was a pleasant surprise last Sunday!

Cheese!

This little nut loves cottage cheese. She would probably love it even more if she could get more of it IN her mouth. "Cheese!" is one of the few words she knows, and she requests it for every meal. This was her breakfast today!

Rent is FREE today, for as long as you want...

During nap time, Zoee decided to take off her diaper and paint her room...oh, gag...
I am not smiling or laughing today...

The-Tender-Mercies-of-the-Lord

Below is the link to a UTube video. I love this clip by Elder David A. Bednar. He was the president of the college I attended, and is now an apostle of Jesus Christ. I have so much respect and admiration for him and appreciate his words of wisdom and comfort.
The-Tender-Mercies-of-the-Lord

CHILD FOR RENT

One day, I had 5 mishaps with Zo before she had even been awake for an hour. I decided to write down all of her incidents for the day, just to let my husband know why I don't get anything accomplished. The list was so long that I can't even remember everything she did. But it included such things as sitting on the toilet with her clothes on and falling through the hole, chucking 2 rolls of toilet paper in the sink and washing them, throwing a piece of carrot that she found on the floor into my mixing bowl when I was making a cake, stuffing the food processor with dried apricots (no, she didn't have it plugged in or turned on, luckily), painting the table top with yogurt, and the list goes on and on....

Well, this week I went in the bedroom for no more than 5 minutes to hang up some clothes. When I came out, Zoee was standing over the computer with a half empty bottle of Benadryl. She had gotten a kitchen chair, pushed it over to where the medicine was, climbed up to the medicine, got the Benadryl, got the childproof cap off, and emptied half of the bottle (a portion emptied onto the computer keyboard) in 5 minutes! Well, I had to call poison control, because I didn't know if she drank any of the medicine/how much. While I was on the phone to poison control, she got out the thick, greasy Eucerine lotion and smeared it all down her pant leg and on my couch! I was about ready to ring her neck, but I was too worried about her to do so! Luckily Zoee didn't end up having any ill effects from the Benadryl. So she got little to none in her mouth! Phew!

Well, the next day, I dared take a shower. I don't know what I was thinking! I was gone for 8 minutes. I came out to find that she had put on a pair of Daniel's socks, scaled up the back of our futon,  jumped up on the short wall in front of my bedroom, gotten into the off limits drawer of baby supplies, smeared lotion all over her face and on my new camera, and was just taking off the lid to the infant suppositories when I caught her!

I had to use my old camera to take a pic, since my new one was greased! I think it must sound like I am a totally irresponsible mother, but I have never seen such a child that could climb anything, find anything, open anything! She exhausts me...and makes me laugh and smile and want to squeeze her! I think that we are going to have to get a safe for the off limit things and hope she doesn't know how to crack the code!

PS Rent is cheap, but you can't keep her for more than 3 hours. I would miss her too much after that!